Skip to main content

Washington Post focuses on Modi's estranged wife, calls her India's First Lady, wonders why she's abandoned

By A Representative
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s estranged wife Jashodaben has finally got international attention. Premier US daily, “The Washington Post” (January 25), has taken note of her state on the day American President Barack Obama arrived in India, commenting, “She’s waiting for him, as she has been all her life. But when IPrime Minister Narendra Modi dines with Barack and Michelle Obama at a glittering banquet Sunday night, his wife won’t be by his side.” It adds, “Modi, 64, kept his teenage marriage a secret for decades during his political ascent and only last year admitted that his wife exists.”
A retired teacher "who lives in a small town in Modi’s home state of Gujarat", the daily says, Jashodaben has “not heard from her husband in years“, yet “she says she still hopes to join him one day in the capital as India’s first lady.” It quotes her as saying, “If he calls me, I will go. I hear all his speeches on TV. I feel very good when I hear him speak. I want him to fulfill all his promises to the people. That’s my prayer to God.”
In a report titled “Abandoned as a child bride, India’s first lady still hopes her husband will call”, the daily quotes a Modi biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay to say that the exactly nature of the marriage between the two is not known. “There would have been a ritual that joined them together as man and wife, but they would not have lived together. The family said that the two of them never cohabitated.”
“Modi left shortly thereafter to wander in the Himalayas with little more than a change of clothing in his rucksack. A devout Hindu, Modi was contemplating religious life. Instead, he returned to Gujarat and became a volunteer, or pracharak, in the RSS, a Hindu nationalist group. The young workers, pracharaks, are discouraged from marrying or maintaining close family ties”, the daily says.
Authored by Annie Gowen, “The Washington Post” India bureau chief, the writeup says, “Modi never returned to his wife but never divorced her, even as he became the high-profile chief minister of Gujarat and last year, India’s premier. He never publicly spoke of his wife, and journalists who sniffed around on the topic as Modi’s fame grew were privately discouraged from doing so.”
“Jashodaben Modi saw her husband only once when he was chief minister, at a ceremony at a local temple, according to her brother, Ashok Modi. She lives with her brother in the small town of Unjha, in the northern part of the state“, Gowen says quoting her brother, adding, “He had come to the [goddess temple] for a prayer. They did not speak. They did not even say a word to each other. They just met for five seconds.”
The daily recalls, “The prime minister only officially acknowledged his wife’s existence when he filed his affidavit in April as a candidate for Parliament in the town of Vadodara…During the election, the wife disappeared for a time, reportedly on a barefoot pilgrimage, in her husband’s honour. After he became prime minister, she was assigned an official security detail. But it has not been a happy experience.”
Meanwhile, the daily says, “Nearly a dozen guards watch her 24/7 and follow her in a shiny car as she takes auto rickshaws and public transportation... When she visits friends or relatives, they have to cook for the guards…” It quotes her brother as saying, “The security travels in an air-conditioned car. But my sister takes buses, trains and auto rickshaws. What kind of justice is this? Should a prime minister's wife not get a car?”

Comments

TRENDING

10,000 students deprived of classes as Ahmedabad school remains shut: MCC writes to Gujarat CM

By A Representative   The Minority Coordination Committee (MCC) has written to Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, urging him to immediately reopen the Seventh Day Adventist School in Maninagar, Ahmedabad, where classes have been suspended for nearly two weeks. The MCC claims that the suspension, following a violent incident, violates the constitutional right to education of thousands of children.

Gujarat minority rights group seeks suspension of Botad police officials for brutal assault on minor

By A Representative   A human rights group, the Minority Coordination Committee (MCC) Gujarat,  has written to the Director General of Police (DGP), Gandhinagar, demanding the immediate suspension and criminal action against police personnel of Botad police station for allegedly brutally assaulting a minor boy from the Muslim community.

On Teachers’ Day, remembering Mother Teresa as the teacher of compassion

By Fr. Cedric Prakash SJ   It is Teachers’ Day once again! Significantly, the day also marks the Feast of St. Teresa of Calcutta (still lovingly called Mother Teresa). In 2012, the United Nations, as a fitting tribute to her, declared this day the International Day of Charity. A day pregnant with meaning—one that we must celebrate as meaningfully as possible.

A comrade in culture and controversy: Yao Wenyuan’s revolutionary legacy

By Harsh Thakor*  This year marks two important anniversaries in Chinese revolutionary history—the 20th death anniversary of Yao Wenyuan, and the 50th anniversary of his seminal essay "On the Social Basis of the Lin Biao Anti-Party Clique". These milestones invite reflection on the man whose pen ignited the first sparks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and whose sharp ideological interventions left an indelible imprint on the political and cultural landscape of socialist China.

Targeted eviction of Bengali-speaking Muslims across Assam districts alleged

By A Representative   A delegation led by prominent academic and civil rights leader Sandeep Pandey  visited three districts in Assam—Goalpara, Dhubri, and Lakhimpur—between 2 and 4 September 2025 to meet families affected by recent demolitions and evictions. The delegation reported widespread displacement of Bengali-speaking Muslim communities, many of whom possess valid citizenship documents including Aadhaar, voter ID, ration cards, PAN cards, and NRC certification. 

Gandhiji quoted as saying his anti-untouchability view has little space for inter-dining with "lower" castes

By A Representative A senior activist close to Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) leader Medha Patkar has defended top Booker prize winning novelist Arundhati Roy’s controversial utterance on Gandhiji that “his doctrine of nonviolence was based on an acceptance of the most brutal social hierarchy the world has ever known, the caste system.” Surprised at the police seeking video footage and transcript of Roy’s Mahatma Ayyankali memorial lecture at the Kerala University on July 17, Nandini K Oza in a recent blog quotes from available sources to “prove” that Gandhiji indeed believed in “removal of untouchability within the caste system.”

'Govts must walk the talk on gender equality, right to health, human rights to deliver SDGs by 2030'

By A Representative  With just 64 months left to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), global health and rights advocates have called upon governments to honour their commitments on gender equality and the human right to health. Speaking ahead of the 80th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), experts warned that rising anti-rights and anti-gender pushes are threatening hard-won progress on SDG-3 (health and wellbeing) and SDG-5 (gender equality).

Is U.S. fast losing its financial and technological edge under Trump’s second tenure?

By Dr. Manoj Kumar Mishra*  The United States, along with its Western European allies, once promoted globalization as a democratic force that would deliver shared prosperity and balanced growth. That promise has unraveled. Globalization, instead of building an even world, has produced one defined by inequality, asymmetry of power, and new vulnerabilities. For decades, Washington successfully turned this system to its advantage. Today, however, under Trump’s second administration, America is attempting to exploit the weaknesses of others without acknowledging how exposed it has become itself.

What mainstream economists won’t tell you about Chinese modernisation

By Shiran Illanperuma  China’s modernisation has been one of the most remarkable processes of the 21st century and one that has sparked endless academic debate. Meng Jie (孟捷), a distinguished professor from the School of Marxism at Fudan University in Shanghai, has spent the better part of his career unpacking this process to better understand what has taken place.